The Complete Guide to LinkedIn Ads: How to Run a Successful Campaign

So…. you want to start advertising on LinkedIn? You’ve probably been thinking about it for a while, years even, right? Or maybe, you’re already using pay-per-click techniques on Facebook, Twitter, or Google. And now you’re ready to do the same with LinkedIn.

Either way, we’ve got ya covered.

Attract more leads and prospects on the world’s largest business stage. This makes good business dollars-and-sense. After reading this post, you’ll be a LinkedIn monster.

You’ll gain expertise to use LinkedIn ads to get more appointments, with more leads for your biz. From setting up your ads to tweaking and improving them over time.

Bonus:Download a free guide to discover four time-saving tools to help you grow your LinkedIn network faster. Includes one tool that lets you schedule a week’s worth of LinkedIn updates in just three minutes.

Before all that, let’s understand…

Why use LinkedIn ads?

Because everyone is there.

Okay, not everyone. Just 560 million of them.

Them being, business professionals—a serious bunch who know what they want. Forty percent of them have conversations everyday on LinkedIn.

Conversations you want to be in on, right?

LinkedIn has refined their tools over time. Creating a more interesting and useful experience than ever. A great place for you, Mr-or-Miss marketer, to get your message ‘out there’. Count thy ways:

Hey, want to be high-stakes player on LinkedIn?

“Will LinkedIn ads work for me?”

Try it and see. Create an ad to see the audience you’ll reach and attract. Then decide.

As for costs, you’ve got options. Spend a daily amount, as little as $2 per day, for say, a short-term, one- or two-month campaign. Or, pay based on performance with pay-per-click or pay-per-impression ads.

These are a few of the benefits of adding LinkedIn advertising to your marketing strategy.

Let’s learn about the types of ads in the LinkedIn toolbox.

Types of LinkedIn ads

Want to target your message to executives? Influencers? Job seekers?

Getting clear on the who will help you determine the what.

Each type of LinkedIn ad has its own benefits and approaches. They come in two flavors: Self-Service ads and LinkedIn Advertising Partner Solutions.

Let’s have a look…

Self-service ads

Like the name implies, you can start today, all on your own. Dig in with Campaign Manager, a snappy tool to do it all.

Schedule campaigns, target your audience, and see who’s clicking on your ads. This takes time and effort, like any work worth doing. But, it’s easy to follow and a great way to dip your marketing toes into LinkedIn advertising.

❱ Sponsored content

What is it?

A way to promote existing content already on your Company Page.

Share your posts with a targeted audience. Broadcast company news, upcoming promotions, useful articles, SlideShare presentations, and Vimeo & YouTube videos. These ads appear on the home page feed- for desktop, mobile and tablet.
Got a one-day-sale coming up? Or a video of a recent charity event?

Perfect, spread that cheer to a wider net, showing how your company is helping others.

❱ Sponsored InMail

What is it?

A way to deliver personalized messages to users’ LinkedIn inboxes.

People develop trust when they feel you’re talking directly to them.

They’ll be more likely to hit the buy, click, or call link, too.

Sponsored InMail will get to users, no matter what devices they’re using. Messages have a custom greeting, call-to-action button, body text. You can also add a link in the message body. Messages will appear in their inbox just like they do for regular messages. Pay for only the messages you send.

❱ Dynamic ads

What is it?

A way to show personalized ads, dynamically generated based your audience’s activity.

Say LinkedIn knows someone is searching for a job in your industry. Target them at the right time with the right messages.

They’re great for building relationships and delivering personalized messages to the most influential people.

Too, drive more traffic to a landing or your Company page. Members can send you their name and email address from the dynamic ad, without typing a thing. Then, your content will download to their desktop. LinkedIn serves only two visual ads on a page at a time. Quite the noise-and-clutter-free solution.

Bonus:Download a free guide to discover four time-saving tools to help you grow your LinkedIn network faster. Includes one tool that lets you schedule a week’s worth of LinkedIn updates in just three minutes.

We’ve covered a lot to this point. Time now to roll up your marketing sleeves and get to it.

So then…

How to advertise on LinkedIn: step-by-step

Ready, set…

Wait, wait.

To advertise on LinkedIn, you need an account. Some golden tips here. And, a Company Page, too. Because leads and prospects will check you out. You want to look just right, right? If you haven’t already, set all that up first. We’ll wait…

Okay, now… ready, set, go.

How to advertise using self-service ads

Getting started is easy. We’ll show you how in six steps. We’ve abbreviated this to get you going. If needed, see more details here on LinkedIn’s helper page.

Step 1: Set up a Campaign Manager account

Which you can do here. Just takes a few minutes. Really. Create multiple accounts, too. Go crazy.

This is where you will manage and optimize your advertising on LinkedIn. With features to see see how your ads are performing. Such as:

Dynamic visual reporting

See how your Sponsored Content campaigns are performing

View demographics of people clicking on your ads

Step 2: Choose your ad type

Select the type of ad you want to create. Create an entire campaign using all three formats for maximum impact and reach.

Next…

Create a campaign name

Choose your target audience language

Select a call-to-action option (for Sponsored Content ads)

Step 3: Create your ad

Campaign Manager walks you through creating ads. With help for ad specs and tips along the way. For example, some options for creating a Text Ad:

Step 4: Target your ad

Specify options for targeting your ad to the right people. Such as, location, company names, school names, job functions, skills, and other filters. Save your choices as a template to speed things up later, when creating other campaigns.

Step 5: Set your budget. And schedule, too.

For parting with your money, you’ve got options:

Cost per click (CPC)

Cost per impression (CPM) for the messages in a user’s view, or…

Cost per send, for Sponsored InMail ads (pay only for the messages received)

For CPC and CPM, set a daily spend limit and a bid price. This states the max you’ll pay per click or impression. Choose a start and finish date for your campaign, too.

Easily manage your LinkedIn Company Page alongside your other social channels using Hootsuite. From a single platform you can schedule and share content—including video—and engage your network. Try it today.